


Array of Equivalent Exchange

by UltimatelyLoveless



Series: Moment of Truth [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Adult Edward Elric, Angst, Ed has issues sharing, Especially Roy, Everyone is a little protective of Ed, Fluff and Angst, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Roy got promoted again, possessive Roy, royed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 11:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13926369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltimatelyLoveless/pseuds/UltimatelyLoveless
Summary: Roy is off on assignment for two weeks and Edward is left with his demons. They don't play nice.





	Array of Equivalent Exchange

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time uploading, and only my second fanfic ever, so please be gentle.
> 
> This was written in the span of a few hours while I'm coping with some things. I'm having a bad time so I dragged Edward down in it with me. RoyEd is the newest ship in my yard so it was fitting for it to be this pairing.
> 
> Ed is an adult here, around 21 or so. (Edited this part of the note for his age because I have expanded the story. See notes at the bottom for details!)
> 
> I had no Beta so any mistakes/typos/etc are my own. Story is set in the Brotherhood verse as I have not seen all of the '03 Anime or read the manga yet.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. I do own the plot (what little there is for this fic).

Sunlight on the afternoon of the first day was warm and inviting. It cast its golden shadows lovingly across anything it could touch within the modest brownstone. It was quiet inside despite the bustling chaos of the city just beyond the front door. Only the ticking of a few clocks scattered throughout different rooms dared to break through the peace. Everything inside had its place: neatly tucked away books on shelves, immaculate kitchen, coats hung in their place on a rack by the main door, perfectly arranged furniture splayed before a carved stone mantle in the living room, everything down to the one lone figure in the home still tangled in blankets in the upstairs master bedroom.

The lean form remained buried under the quilts on the bed with the only indication of life being the slight rise and fall of his breathing. Blonde hair was splayed across the pillows and half hidden beneath the blankets leaving only a few longer locks to frame the sleeping handsome face of the bed’s occupant. As it always was the peace didn’t last forever.

Pleasant dreams had been what greeted him when Edward Elric had finally succumbed to sleep the night before; it was more like early morning when his head hit the pillow. A last night with Roy Mustang was always a grand affair between the two. The newly promoted Major General had been relocated back to Central upon his successes with the Ivashalans, but it didn’t keep him from being sent out back east on occasion. If Ed could have followed he would. Unfortunately, ridged as the military goings on were, it didn’t mean either of them could always tell when Roy would be sent off and give Ed the chance to change his own schedule. This had been one such instance.

Making the most of their time they spent hours saying their goodbyes. What had started with Ed pretending to help Roy pack for his two week trip devolved into the luggage being abandoned and the bedroom door being shut and neither male leaving it until Roy had to reluctantly drag himself from the bed that morning. They had been together long enough that he learned how to disentangle himself from his lover and sneak out of bed to leave Edward still asleep and cocooned in the blankets. The blonde would be pissed when he woke up, the chance to get in a final farewell robbed from him, but Roy knew he would never get to leave if he didn’t sneak out in the dull, pre-dawn light to the waiting car outside.

In the older man’s absence Edward slept on; it was not atypical for him to sleep straight through until lunch or early afternoon. His blissful, ignorant, sleep kept him happy in the sated aftermath of the night before until some small part of him in his unconscious state realized the emptiness of the bed. What were sweet calming dreams began to shift to uneasy nightmares.

Where he and Roy were happy it turned into a tangled mess of loss, fear, pained separation, and the worst agony he hadn’t felt since…

No longer warm and safe golden eyes snapped open with his body and mind reeling from the terrors his traumatized mind wrought on itself. A cold sweat coated his body making his skin stick to the sheets leaving only his automail leg to be the one part of him not momentarily trapped by their clutches.

Rubbing at his face he tried to push the sleep from them and anchor himself in the present. Twisting he craned his head to try and find the one person who could calm his racing thoughts only to have the pit of his stomach drop at the realization he was as alone as his dreams implied. They clung like ice to the edges of his mind leaving him feeling cold, empty, and abandoned.

“Roy?” His voiced called out into the empty abyss of their bedroom still gruff from sleep and more than a little bit hoarse from the previous night. No movement from the bathroom, its door ajar enough that he would have noticed if the older man were moving about within, made the panic rise even more.

Writhing until he freed himself he slipped from the bed and found his discarded boxers on the chair near the bed. He knew that wasn’t where he’d originally thrown them and it was enough to make the hope swell within his heart. Only the General was enough of a neat freak to move things around to make order out of chaos. So at least, in that, the former Fullmetal Alchemist took comfort in the fact Roy had been there: that it wasn’t some dream concocted by a lonely mind.

It would not be enough to keep the doubts at bay for very long.

While not so lost to his bad dreams his mood was less than ideal as he moved through the doorway into the hallway after slipping his boxers back on. It was just as empty as their room. Passing the guest bathroom and bedroom and a spare hall closet he moved silently down the stairs with only his automail making any heavier noise casting an uneven sound to his gait. The stairs deposited him by the front door where golden orbs clouded with sleep could observe Roy’s jacket and hat were gone and so too were his boots and the bags he remembered them leaving half open in their haste to get to the bedroom.

Rounding the bottom of the stair railing he tread through the front hall glancing into the first floor washroom as if he expected to see the dark haired male inside. The same was expected of the just as empty living room and kitchen. Abandoning the main rooms he pushed further until he came to Roy’s office pushing the door open with a reluctant hand.

Empty.

Shoulders took on a noticeable slump as he turned away and moved back to the kitchen. Maybe it was the sleep still clinging to him that had clouded his thoughts because as he entered the kitchen that was when he remembered that Roy was off on a two week stay in the East to smooth over some problems with the Ishvalans and the newly established trade routes to Xing. How could he have forgotten?

Edward wasn’t abandoned, just left stranded on his own for a little while. He could handle that. They would still get a phone call or two before Roy was out of reach so he could manage.

As he set about the kitchen to finally make coffee and breakfast for himself a little glimmer of his usual self flickered back to life. “Bastard left and didn’t wake me!” He glowered at the iron pan before him as if he could make the bacon in it’s center sizzle more violently just by glaring at it.

He expected the phone to ring later that evening when he was starting a fire to chase off the winter chill outside before he went to make dinner and settle down to reading afterward. The call never came. As life died down outside it began to match the silence of night that crept over the innards of the house. Silver moonlight replaced the yellow rays of sun that had been Edward’s former source of light for reading after dinner. He shifted on the couch to adjust himself to let the firelight be his reading guide.

Gold eyes kept flicking to the clock no matter what room he was in. Six crept on toward seven. Nine. And at ten, when he hadn’t read more than a handful of pages in as many hours he knew the call wasn’t going to come.

Angrily he chucked the book to the far end of the couch where he sat and huffed his way out of the room to leave his plates from dinner scattered on the coffee table and the fire to die down on it’s own. There was a good explanation for the lack of communication he tried to tell himself on his way to their ensuite bathroom. The phones out that way were constantly having problems to accommodate the growing need so Roy probably wasn’t able to call as much as he wanted. Well, as much as Ed _hoped_ he wanted.

Shucking off his clothing and tossing the articles in whichever direction his arms flung them he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. The shower came to life not long after. Even the soothing effects of the hot spray and familiar scent of the soap they shared did nothing to abate his misery.

By the time he emerged again, steam billowing out the open door, he was no less gloomy than before. He shook the blankets on the bed to bring them back into some semblance of acceptable order before slipping back underneath. Maybe in the morning he’d be in a better mood; it was doubtful his mood would improve too much as he was upset with not getting the chance to say goodbye, but he tried his usual method of chastising himself for being silly and letting something so trivial get to him.

The next few days were no better.

No phone call came, nor did any letters. Each night after the first became darker and more lonely until he couldn’t close his eyes without the inky blackness torturing him. The atmosphere changed to one of hope to one of utter despair. Plagued with old terrors from mistakes of his past combined with new horrors he was left a shell of himself by the seventh day.

Rich, late autumn light turned to murky shadow as a cold rain swept across Central. It blanketed the city in icy sheets that left everything slick and shiny. From within the brownstone Edward watched the rain clatter against the windowpane through sheer curtains. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d opened them. He couldn’t even remember what day it was or when the last time he ate had been. There were plates in the living room and kitchen so he must have eaten at some point, right?

He stood in front of the sink with the daunting task of dishes piled up before him and he held no desire to do anything about them. He held no desire to do anything. Ed’s mind wandered constantly to the day before - or was it the day before that? - where he had tried to get in touch with Roy, but the operators stated they couldn’t get through. He could always call Alphonse, his younger brother could easily set his mind at ease and drag him from his thoughts, but he couldn’t bare to place his burdens on him. Not again. Ed wanted his sibling to be happy and ignorant to the demons that still haunted him so he refused to call.

The next time he surfaced from the hurricane of his mind he knew he was curled up on the floor halfway through the doorway to the living room and main hallway. His eyes were directed toward the window, still buffeted with the rain of the raging storm outside. How long had he been sitting there? Why did that even matter?

_It’s your fault this happened._

_They suffered because of you._

_He suffered because of you._

_Bringing him back doesn’t abolish your sins._

_They’re lying. They don’t care about you._

_He left because you’re pathetic._

Somehow the rain had gotten inside. It washed over him like a flood blurring his vision and dragging him under kicking and screaming, choking him mercilessly. It soaked his face and the long bangs that framed it making it stick to his skin. The storm raged so loudly within his mind he didn’t hear the phone ringing the first time. Nor was he alert to the second or third.

No amount of ache or bodily hunger roused him from his prison. He cried like the heavens did outside as they blanketed the city leaving the home around him to feel just as dark and frozen as he felt on the inside.

What if Roy was gone because of something Edward had done or said? Maybe Roy was tired of having to deal with traumas of his own and now Ed’s too. Sharing it with someone who understood had been the catalyst for closeness yet perhaps it had turned into the fuel that was pushing them apart. Were they growing apart? The last night they had spent together felt like such a distant memory that his despair convinced him it was over.

With all of his messy relationships it was this one, the only one he had not marked with an intimacy he’d formed with someone since birth as he had with Al and Winry, that he seemed so addicted to. This is the one he wanted to preserve so desperately that it made him ache to the core. Even if his tormented brain told him Alphonse and Winry stayed out of obligation alone they would still be there wouldn’t they? Roy was not held to the same requirements no matter how helpful Ed’s past doings had been in his ever ongoing climb to become Fuhrer.

What help had he been to the man lately, anyway? He was still compiling information and cross referencing everything he’d learned in his trip to the West, but it hadn’t been so fruitful lately after all the initial findings had been worked through. In that way Alphonse was having a better time of it than he was. Alphonse still had his alchemy and - as much as it pained him - he did not. Resolute as he was that giving it up to Truth had been right, he hadn’t anticipated missing it this many years later. He could feel the dead end of his part in everything looming and he couldn’t think of what else he could do to make himself useful.

He loved Roy; loved the General with every fiber of his soul and yet he couldn’t place a value on his own worth if he had no other purpose to set himself to once his side of the research with Alphonse came to an end. Edward didn’t do well with sitting and doing nothing. He was restless and needed purpose and he couldn’t see one anymore.

_Of course he left. I’m an idiot and I’m weighing him down._

Forehead touching his knees - hugged tightly to his chest - he shivered and spent the last of his tears succumbing to the dark specters grasping at the edges of his vision.

 

“Almost there, sir.” Riza Hawkeye held her usual place in the driver’s seat of the military vehicle she sat in. In the back, Roy Mustang pretended he was going over paperwork.

In hindsight it was a terrible cover for his worry. Going without speaking to his former subordinate turned lover was nothing new. Sometimes they just couldn’t get in touch if Roy was sent off on some assignment or Edward’s research dragged him somewhere remote. A ride home especially an early one - three whole days to be exact - was usually much more casual and laid back. While inwardly he always wanted to hurry back he still was able to maintain his composure until, at the very least, he reached his home.

Dark eyes glanced up to meet Riza’s in the rearview mirror. The softness to her features transferred all he needed to know. She was the one who had answered the call first after all.

Alphonse had sounded worried laced with a bit of anger. He couldn’t get in touch with Ed and wasn’t happy to hear that Roy hadn’t contacted him either.

“Of course I tried! The lines out this way are in constant construction I couldn’t get through,” he’d said to the youngest Elric, exasperated. It was true.

What he hated to admit the most was that he waited one train stop too long before trying to call back home. One of the station attendants informed him that had he called at the last stop instead he could have gotten through without a hitch. A letter was out of the question too. It would arrive too late if he sent it the standard way and his detail of personnel was too small for him to abuse and use one of them to send back as his personal carrier pigeon. Everyone had offered - of course they had, everyone knew and fully supported Edward and himself - and he was forced to decline even if he was sorely tempted to abuse his power.

Alphonse was closer, however, and able to reach Roy. It paid to live somewhere stradling the no-man’s land of spotty phone lines and the parts of Amestris that stretched off back West toward Central. His scolding still run on repeat in the back of his mind all the way home. Riza - in all her understanding and glory - managed to speed him home far ahead of his luggage. At this point he didn’t care if it all got lost. He wouldn’t miss the paperwork that weighted down his regular suitcase and anything else he carried of import was in his small leather case sitting at his side and even that he had almost left behind if not for Hawkeye.

Roy could buy new clothes and paperwork could be redone, but he could not simply purchase a new boyfriend. There was no one else like Ed. He was unique and intriguing, infuriating at times still, but no less endearing and beautiful. His growing scowl only seemed to spur Riza on as her foot - accidentally she would later claim - pressed down on the accelerator taking them well beyond the speed limit.

Not even the awful grasp of frostbitten rain slowed him down as he ejected himself from the back seat without waiting for Riza to step out and open it for him. The papers he’d been holding were scattered to every crevice beside him as he hucked the offending papers aside and made toward the house without looking back. Nothing in that bag mattered. 

 

The front door opened with such haste it was like he were entering a burning building with the intent to save something precious from within.

Soaked and dripping he flicked his hat off his head, shirking his coat and clumsily tossing both toward the rack: his heavy jacket missing completely and crumpling to the floor in a huff of cold air and drenched wool.

“Ed?” He fumbled out of his wet boots discarding them somewhere in the vicinity of the small radiator near the door. Only without his coat and standing in his socks did it finally dawn on him the chill in the home. While it was only early evening, still light outside, the thick dark clouds lush with the rain they sprayed made the light inside more dim. Coupled with the late fall it cast heavy shadows throughout the main hall and stairs.

Why wasn’t the heat on? At the very least there should have been the flickers of fire-light coming from the living room or bouncing dimly off the end of the hall at the top of the stairs from their bedroom. There was nothing.

Voice rising in panic he called out again. “Edward!” Moving forward he remained alert. His eyes darted toward the washroom and kitchen first before they turned and caught sight of the familiar slumped figure on the floor.

Ed’s clothing was disheveled - to put it lightly - and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a year. White cotton button down shirt and black pants were heavily wrinkled and showed signs of being worn for days. His face was especially pale in the dim lights casting a sickly glow about him. His hair was a tangled mess. The high pony tail he kept it in had slouched until the band hung at his shoulders and his long tresses were pulled haphazardly leaving them to bend and twist in odd angles. His legs were no longer bent to meet the rest of his body instead having slumped to lay outstretched in defeat. The only thing holding him upright was a dark wood side table beside the doorway. It was heavy enough to keep him from falling over and taking it with him.

Their eyes met: ebony searching wheaten and warm hands reaching to touch the blonde tenderly.

“It’s over right?” Ed found himself saying. It didn’t sound like his voice; distant and far away it sounded nothing like his usual confident self. Roy was finding himself privy to things about Edward only Alphonse had ever been able to witness.

Blinking the dark haired male hadn’t been expecting that response. He’d been waiting for Ed to answer his probing, to tell him he was alright even though he could see that he wasn’t. Smoothing his hands along Ed’s sleeves the younger male flinched reacting like an abused animal to the gentle caress of a savior. It only made him tighten his grip giving a little shake to the former Alchemist to rouse him from his stupor.

“Never,” he said softly, voice taking on a deeper tone of possessiveness. He was only met with confused sadness.

“Why did you come back? It’s okay. I’m fine.” Edward’s smile was crooked and pained. Even as he tried to make peace with the lies the demons whispered to him his hands betrayed him as he reached up and let his fingers brush along his lover’s sleeves. He could feel the warmth beneath the fabric biting at the chill off his own skin. He was going to shake it off, pretend everything was fine, put on the show like he always did when it meant bottling up his problems to prevent others from having to deal with it. Hadn’t he caused enough of a scene?

“Not even Truth could keep me away,” Roy said, stating the words with such confidence it was impossible to take them as anything other than fact. It made his golden eyes widen with the shimmer of life seeming to flicker back within them. With it came the pain.

He felt strong hands cupping his face as he wilted again; eyes tearing up he curled forward despite all the protests his body gave from how stiff and sore he was. His fingers twitched with the need to touch at Roy’s wrists collapsing into the embrace as Ed could feel the rain inside again washing over him. Every tear spilled its way beyond his lashes in thick drops that seeped into Roy’s cuffs and splashed down onto his own pants.

Only when he felt Roy’s scent grow stronger did he lift himself enough to finally feel the other pull him closer. An arm was around his waist, the other around his shoulders, wrapping him in warmth despite the dampness clinging to Roy’s clothing. Ed hunched in again this time with his face buried into the others shoulder and his hands gripping tight in his military issue shirt creasing and wrinkling it with every movement he made to claw at it.

Murmuring against Roy’s collarbone he let his feeble apologies slip free no longer able to maintain his charade . “I’m sorry. It was stupid. I-”

“No. You’re allowed to feel, Ed.” Roy could see what had happened. He was amazed it was the first time it occurred while they were apart. They both had their demons to fight and Ed wasn’t the only one who had nightmares about his past. While they both had their share of people in their lives to help them through it, to be there with understanding and love, there was something much more cathartic in sharing with someone who held similar feelings. What they didn’t want to burden others with they found release in sharing with each other. Whatever nightmares had dragged Edward into this fit he would be more than willing to beat back with his flame. Nothing was going to take Ed away from him - certainly not this.

Sitting back he lifted Edward’s face in his hands again only to lean in and press their foreheads together, turning his face to nuzzle with the others in that familiar way they had. It didn’t matter to him if it only smeared the tears onto his own skin or hair.

“We’ll fight them together,” he whispered. Ed shuddered in reply, eyes closing and arching into the tender caress.

All it took was a minor twist to allow their lips to meet. However intentionally it was on Roy’s part it stole Ed’s breath away leaving him to lean into it for more. There wasn’t a heat of lust behind it. Instead it made him feel at home. Safe. He was grounded in place with the understanding that the past - different though theirs may be from one another - only made their bond stronger.

Edward didn’t need to give something in order to receive what he needed. Something of great value to him didn’t need to be lost in order to gain a modicum of relief. Roy was learning the same. Nothing besides a few tears would be lost and in their wake the bond they shared could only grow stronger for it. 

This was worth fighting for.

This was worth _living_ for.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I've had no one else to share my love for this pairing with so I've been left to write about it instead. If you have a moment I would love to receive feedback or a kudos is nice enough for me.  
>    
>  ~~Depending on the reception this gets and how I'm feeling I may branch off of this into something more. I've got ideas.~~
> 
> I decided to expand the story. A prequel to this oneshot can be read [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13975575). Thank you all for your support! It means more to me than you'll ever know.


End file.
